Axis problem............3dsMax

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day all,Due to my ignorance when I put the TOP viewport background bitmap into 3dsmax I did so with the aircraft facing down.Very weird views in 3dsmax. I've used many tech drawings in both 1st and 3rd angle projection. Max uses neither. Went ahead and built the aircraft.I later realised the axis (thingy) in the lower L/H corner of each viewport had the Y axis arrow pointing rearwards. Not forwards like in Jeans tutorials.No problem - simply mirror the aircraft about the Y axis I thought.I did this this and now as can be seen in the attachment in all views the Z axis is pointing upwards, the Y axis is pointing forwards ( at least in the top,left and perspective viewports) and the X axis is pointing to the right.BUTWhilst the top view and the left view are correct, the front and rear views are reversed!! I suspect the Y axis is pointing rearwards in just the front view (or maybe the aircraft is extruded in the wrong direction) and thats why I'm getting a rear rear view in the front viewport.How can I change the Y axis in ONLY the front viewport?Will the Fly!II editor have a problem with the reversed views?What have I done wrong?Cheers,Roger

[Guest CaptainJ]

Hi Roger,Don't ask why but I do the same with my models the back view shows the front of the plane and the front view shows the back of my plane!my axis areX = for pitchingY = for rollingZ = for yawing Hope this helps

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Jarno,Thanks for the reply. On closer examination all views have the axis the same Z (normal) x (lateral) and Y (longitudinal).It's just 3dsMax that has the viewports names FRONT & BACK reversed.The aircraft is correctly aligned with the axis in all views. :-)So at this stage I take it that there is nothing to worry unduly about.What version of max are you using? I'm using v 4 and Jeans tutorial is written for R 3. There a few differences with the menus and I'm having trouble with texturing.I have managed to produce a blueprint for a fuselage side and paint it in Photoshop, but when I get it into the material editor I can't seem to get it applied correctly to the half fuselage.Cheers,Roger

[Guest tonyc]

Roger, this will not create any problems in FLY2. Keep in mind that you need to create a CG with the transform tool.tony

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Tony,Yep already done! I moved the pivot point of the body and transformed it. Now everything I link to the body should also move with the body about that pivot point. Texturing is my current hurdle. I've produced a blueprint of the side view of the fuselage and saved it as a *tga, painted it in photoshop, get it into the material editor, but for the life of me I can't assign it.Cheers,Roger

[Guest tonyc]

go back to the site , the Battlefield 1942, and look at all of the tutorials. Some of their techniques will seem more to your liking, and then things will start coming together. I am now in the chaotic phase: need to improve flight modeling, need to learn more about texturing, need to clean up the 3d model..don't know where to stop or begin. That is the "learning curve" dilemma.I didn't know that the flight modeling would be the most interesting, but blind phase. Finding the moment of inertia is very difficult, especially for a brand new plane. And creating the right feel for the controls is also a challenge. The Electra should feel heavy and not react very well to elevator control. We need someone like Rob YOung to elaborate on the tweaking.tony

[Guest CaptainJ]

Hi Roger, TonyI approuche an complete other way! I look on the net for good side photo's of my plane, since it allready got the same shape I never make a bleuprint out of my model I made in Max (I use both max 4.2 and 5.0 on the same harddrive without any problem btw) I edit the photo to the correct size and edit the texture a bit. I save the texture to bmp 24bit. I open the material editor hit the box next to diffuse, now there's a list coming up select out of that list bitmap. browse to your saved bmp on your harddisk and load it on the sphere in the mat. editor. http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/86551.jpgNEXT IS IMPORTANT!!! after that go to your object and make sure it's in editable mesh. Select your polygons you wanted that texture on. with the polygons highlighted in red you go back to your material editor and make sure you have the sphere with the correct texture selected (white border around the sphere) hit the little button below which says "assign material to selection"http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/86552.jpgAfter that you got to your modify panel on the right and select out of the "modifier list" -> UVW MAP you'll see that there's an orange rectangle around your selection. Now the material will be applied to your selected erea.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/86553.jpgAfter you have selected the UVW Mapping on the right you have control over the orange rectangle you'll see it's yellow now instead of orange! with the UVW Mapping control panel you can adjust the size and/or allign etc. It's now just a matter of experimenting]Don't be affraid that the textures needed to be in TGA during conversion it will be automatically be saved into TGA format!WARNING!! the Glass textures have to be in all times in TGA format even in the Material editor!!! after the conversion you have to delete the converted TGA glass texture (because it won't have the transparent parameters in it) And use the one you made in PhotoShop or Paintshop (this one has the right parameters)....Let me know if you get stuck again.. :-)

[Guest tonyc]

Thanks, Jarno. I'll give it a try.tony